Our second rule and the 4 words of childhood advice that pre-empted it

In my first job, just as I was entering teenagehood, I volunteered at a summer camp at a local school. One day I was walking across the playing fields with two of my friends and an older staff member who was 18. I remember asking him what one piece of advice he would give us young guys as we were about to enter the scary world of teenagehood and sex. Without thinking, he stopped, looked at us, and said very solemnly: always wrap your knob.

I was impressionable enough as a kid that this advice really stuck with me. And so, two decades later, I still value the habit of practising safe sex.

Which is lucky, because always using condoms with other people is the second of our only two rules in our open marriage.

In this week’s podcast episode, I explore the history of condoms, as well as some details about how effective they are and the reasons people find them inconvenient or don’t use them.

For example, the number that had always floated around my head was 98%, in the sense that condoms are 98% effective at preventing pregnancy. But only when I was researching for my book and these podcasts did I realise that I had no idea what this number meant.

I discovered this: if you take one hundred couples having the average amount of sex throughout the year, and they’re using condoms perfectly—i.e. with the correct lube, the right size, not tearing them by accident, not putting them on after already starting sex, and so on—then, of those hundred couples, on average only two will get pregnant and the other 98 won’t.

(To compare this to the average without any contraception, the same one hundred couples would see 85 of them getting pregnant. So the risk reduces from 85% down to 2%, and that’s with perfect use. With imperfect use, it’s still 87% effective, according to the studies.)

In the episode, I not only explore why people don’t like to use condoms as a form of contraception or to prevent sexual disease, but also the ways people can get around those problems…

So please listen to the episode and share with your friends, and remember that if you ever have questions for future newsletters or podcast episodes, I would love to hear them - you can just reply to this or send a message via Substack :)

Thank you again for reading and listening!

Ned Stranger x